


The Company of Corvids

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 10:05:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16083878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Another friends-to-lovers "first tentative step" story.Are these my favorites? Yes. I love imagining all the fragile, uncertain possible beginnings.See if you like it.





	The Company of Corvids

Mycroft had spent more hours awake than asleep that past week. Quite a lot more awake…more than he could manage well. First it had been Russia and a poisoned defector, and then it had been the latest spat over Brexit, and now it was Sherlock and John both, barely rescued in time, and only because Mycroft continued to keep watch over the two.

“The doctors say they’re going to be fine,” Lestrade said, standing just behind him and at his shoulder as he stared out the lounge window at the dark London streets outside.

Mycroft lifted one shoulder—a half-shrug he’d disciplined himself to long since, as a full-shrug was too expressive, too emotional. One shoulder alone implied a degree of detachment. Two suggested one was engaged, entangled, invested.

“Thanks to them, the killer’s been stopped.”

“Mmmm." Mycroft failed to be convinced. But... "There must be some silver lining, I suppose.”

Lestrade made a small, speculative sound. “You’re more upset than usual.”

“Both of them. Not just Sherlock alone—both of them.” He would not turn to look at the man who’d labored beside him for over a decade trying to keep Sherlock safe. “And Rosie left at home with Mrs. Hudson, who should not be caught in that kind of responsibility. What if they’d died, tonight?”

Lestrade sighed, softly. “You know what would happen. You’d be a superb guardian…and Rosie would be safe and protected as long as you live.” He gave a soft, near-silent chuff of amusement. “Doting Da, that’s what you’d be, and Sherlock and John do guess it. Not that they’d admit it. But so long as you’re there, they can take risks.”

“Then perhaps it’s time I stopped being there for them,” Mycroft snapped. “If all my efforts simply enable them to continue behaving recklessly, it’s time to stop enabling them.”

“You know better, Mike. Try to pen them up and they’ll do something just as reckless and probably useless. Or stupid. Or even criminal. They’re adrenaline addicts, both of ‘em. They steady each other a bit, back each other up in danger…but nothing is ever going to tame them.”

Mycroft refused to snap again—not at the fond, familiar “Mike,” not at the reasoning, not at the feeling of sentiment that seemed to seep off Lestrade, warming Mycroft’s back, and the spot between his shoulders that grew chill when it was cold, or he was unhappy. Or, as this evening, when both applied.

A hand landed lightly between the wings of his shoulder-blades, mid-back, warming away the chill. “They’re in their 40s. John’s going on 50. Not going to change now.”

Mycroft risked a tight, frustrated nod. Then his own anguish crept out. “But—Mummy and Father. They’ve already dealt with Eurus… To lose another child? And then there's Rosie.”

He stopped there.

Lestrade, damn him, finished the set. “And you. It would break your heart to lose them. But… Damn it, Mike, if you’re going to love wild eagles, you have to let them fly, knowing the risks.”

Once said, the bleak, stark reality of it rolled out in Mycroft’s imagination. Mummy and Father’s last thoughts of him before their deaths would be blame—for Eurus, for Sherlock, even for John. Rosie would grow up aching for the loss of her entire family, and all of it his responsibility to have prevented. And nothing to be done about it, because Mycroft loved eagles, and could not bear to clip their wings or prevent their wild, cascading flight through tempest-tossed skies.

Sherlock and John dead, and nothing left but to raise an orphan safe, and let her fly, too, and say goodbye, and…

And wait to die, with nothing left to cherish.

“As you say,” he managed to croak out. “Eagles. I should have lived another life. Something to do with poultry—laying hens.” He settled his jacket, and shook out the coat that had rested in the crook of his elbow, swinging it around to put it on. To his surprise Lestrade took it over, easing it over his arms and setting it neatly. Then the other man put his arm over Mycroft’s shoulders.

“C’mon, sunshine. Let’s get you home.”

Mycroft, startled, allowed himself to be led away from the hospital lounge.

“Do you want to call your man, or take a cab?” Lestrade asked.

“I…” He didn’t know. Even going home seemed a vast leap into uncertainty, all of a sudden. “I’m not sure.” He walked to the end of the corridor and turned into the next, with Lestrade beside him. “Why are you fussing over me?” he asked, voice almost empty of inflection.

“Because…” Lestrade snorted. “Because if Sherlock and John are eagles, you’re my wise old raven, nesting in the tree by my house and keeping watch for enemies. Not so stupid as eagles, or so likely to get yourself in trouble as eagles. Not so…domestic as hens. A good bird to fly with.” He stopped, then, his voice trailing off as the sentence ended, suddenly unsure of himself. Then, “I like you, all right? You don’t do friends. Fine. But I do.” He stopped again, on that slightly surly, defensive note.

“Oh.” Mycroft couldn’t think what else to say. No one was his friend. No one took care of him, or “flew with him.” Well—maybe Lady Smallwood. But that was a ginger, fragile thing, between a reserved, if elegant, widow and a distant, stoic gay man. In a different setting he’d wash her poodle and she’d hand him tissues when the latest of a line of twinks walked out on him.

That was not their setting, or who they were. But it lingered between them, the widow and the aging queen.

And what, then, was Lestrade?

“Yes,” Mycroft risked, pressing harder, trying not to savor the warm arm around his shoulders. “But—why? Why me? Why…why you? Wouldn’t you be better off at a pub, pulling some handsome divorcee?”

Lestrade said nothing, but his arm never left, and his fingers seemed to tighten their hold on the point of Mycroft’s shoulder.

They were silent as the elevator opened, and they stepped in, joining an orderly. Lestrade released Mycroft’s shoulder, his arm coming to rest at his own side, hand plunging into the pocket of his worn overcoat.The elevator cab closed and descended. Two floors later the orderly stepped out. When the cab door closed, Mycroft, on impulse, pressed the stop button. He turned to Lestrade, studying his familiar face.

A face he’d grown…fond of…over the years.

...Fond.

Brown eyes studied him in return—wry, amused. Equally fond.

He and Lestrade looked at each other, and the space between them crackled with growing energy.

It lifted Mycroft’s heart, shivered his skin, changed his world. He could feel the logic of his life shifting around him, a huge animated Rubik’s cube coming into oddly logical alignment. He felt a smile begin at the corner of his mouth.

“A raven?” The question was more fond than sharp. “Really?”

“Well—you’re not a Rhode Island Red,” Lestrade said, and began to grin in turn. “And you’re a wise old bird.”

Mycroft cocked his head, entirely unaware of how avian he looked in that gesture, with glittering, alert eyes and a beak of a nose. “You wouldn’t prefer a domestic little hen to lay eggs?”

Lestrade shrugged. “What can I say? Hens are nice, too. But…I seem to have developed a thing for ravens. Or at least, for one raven.” He reached out and cradled Mycroft’s jaw, his square palm shaking, and suddenly Mycroft could see and feel the other man’s insecurity, his longing, his own loneliness—his hope.

Mycroft leaned into the comforting palm, and sighed contentedly. “Let’s take a cab home to mine,” he said. He turned into Lestrade’s hand, placing a light kiss in the hollow of his palm. “Come home with me. We can be two old ravens together.”

“One for sorrow…”

Mycroft smiled, then. “Two for joy.”

They went together into the dark streets, two storm crows together.


End file.
